Mariners fall 6-3 to Cleveland Indians

One trade too many came back to haunt the Mariners big time Thursday night in a sixth inning after which Doug Fister still didn't know what hit him.

Fister at least knows who hit him — Shin-Soo Choo, the onetime Mariners outfielder who drove home three runs with a double in that sixth to tie the score. Choo then sealed Seattle's 6-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians with a two-run homer in the ninth to cap his night at five runs batted in.

Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera and Luis Valbuena — all former Mariners — delivered hits in a four-run sixth that saw Fister allow four runs on hits to six of the seven batters he faced. Before that inning, he had given up just one single and retired 15 in a row.

"It was just a matter of making pitches," Fister said. "Before that sixth inning, I made pitches. In that sixth inning, they weren't in the quality locations they needed to be.

'When I keep the ball down, use the defense, then things are all right."

The crowd of 17,268 at Safeco Field, witnessing a battle of division cellar-dwellers, had no reason to even suspect what was coming. It saw Fister cruising with a 3-0 lead, courtesy of a two-run, moonshot homer to right field by Russell Branyan off Indians starter Josh Tomlin in a three-run third.

Seattle had seven hits by the end of the third inning, while Fister, after a Michael Brantley single to lead off the game, was in the midst of a roll that would see him toss the equivalent of five perfect innings.

Then it all changed.

The Mariners failed to register another hit the rest of the way against Tomlin and his bullpen. And Fister, after retiring 15 straight, would only record one more out.

Not all of the hits off him in that sixth inning were hard.

Valbuena, part of the J.J. Putz deal by general manager Jack Zduriencik in December 2008, notched an infield single to start things off. One out later, Brantley singled to right and then Cabrera — traded by former GM Bill Bavasi in 2006 — lined a ball to right to load the bases.

That brought up Choo — traded to Cleveland weeks apart from Cabrera in 2006 as Bavasi tried for an ill-fated playoff run — and Fister quickly fell behind 3-1 in the count. The next pitch looked like a grand slam coming off Choo's bat and wound up one-hopping the base of the center-field wall.

All three runners came in to tie the score 3-3. Mariners reliever Garrett Olson had started warming up just before the Choo at-bat, but Fister was coming off the rails so quickly that the reliever simply could not get ready in time.

"It was hard to see that coming," Mariners manager Daren Brown said.

Fister served up a single to right by Travis Hafner to bring home Choo with the go-ahead run. Jayson Nix then singled to end the night for Fister, who had been trying, without success, on each pitch to get the ball lower down in the zone.

"It depends on what's going wrong or what doesn't feel right," he said. "It's just a matter of a 'feel thing.' "

Mariners catcher Adam Moore had gone out to the mound earlier in the inning to talk to Fister.

"I'm just trying to get him back on his pace that he'd had all game instead of leaving balls up in the zone, guys getting ahead early," Moore said. "It was just one of those nights. He had everything going until that one inning."

Brown had managed Choo in the minors — Cabrera and Valbuena, as well — and knew what he was capable of. Choo showed it again in the ninth, taking Jamey Wright deep for two huge insurance runs.

"It was like watching two different ballgames," Brown said. "The first five innings, I thought Fister was really good. It looked like we were going to swing the bats well. And then, it kind of fell apart in the sixth inning. The last part of the ballgame was like a totally different game."

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com